If you're a YouTube Red subscriber, it's well worth taking a moment to try out the YouTube Music app. It's still in the process of filling out its feature set, but each update fleshes out areas that really make it a very compelling way to consume music. The latest version bump adds one of the most needed features yet: streaming support for Chromecast Audio. It also brings a partial redesign to the player controls. There is also a subtle change that gives some hope that we may finally see YouTube Music make the jump to Android TV in the near future.

What's New

Official Changelog:

New: updated design of player controls.

New: YouTube Red subscribers can play music on Chromecast Audio and speakers with Google Cast.

Chromecast Audio support

Left: version 1.40. Right: version 1.42.

It has been a long time coming, but YouTube Music can finally stream to Chromecast Audio and Google Cast-enabled speakers. Just tap the Cast button to open the list of available devices and items with a speaker should begin appearing in the list.

Powering up your Chromecast Audio might require an extra minute or so while a small firmware update is downloaded and installed. I'm not certain, but it seems this update will also enable the web interface for YouTube to begin audio-only streams. At least I'm pretty sure it wasn't possible about a week ago. Note: the YouTube app still can't do audio-only streams.

If you've been looking forward to using your Chromecast Audio with YouTube Music (and YouTube on the web), this is the perfect time to fire it up and try it out. And if anybody at YouTube is reading this, can I put in a request to get Android Auto support next?

Updated player controls

Left + Center: version 1.40. Right: version 1.42.

There have been some changes to the design of the player screen and controls. The new layout is a little more faithful to the way most people probably want to watch music videos. To begin with, the player controls are no longer drawn on top of the video player, but instead have been moved down to a persistent bar across the bottom of the screen, much like they are in Play Music. There are still some controls that overlay the video player, but they are generally relevant to changing settings than controlling playback.

Previous versions also opened on a zoomed in and cropped version of the current video, but as the lower panel dragged up, videos would shrink to a more traditional aspect ratio. The new version is locked into the regular aspect ratio from the start. The informational segment is effectively gone, or rather cut down to a much smaller block of space, and the playlist is always visible instead of hidden below the fold as it was in the previous version.

Teardown

Disclaimer: Teardowns are based on evidence found inside of apks (Android's application package) and are necessarily speculative and usually based on incomplete information. It's possible that the guesses made here are totally and completely wrong. Even when predictions are correct, there is always a chance that plans could change or may be canceled entirely. Much like rumors, nothing is certain until it's officially announced and released.

The features discussed below are probably not live yet, or may only be live for a small percentage of users. Unless stated otherwise, don't expect to see these features if you install the apk.

Android TV, maybe

There was very little to see in the teardown of this update, but one minor detail did jump out at me. A change was made to the application manifest, adding the flag supportsPictureInPicture and setting it to false. This flag obviously relates to the Picture-In-Picture feature added with Android N.

android:supportsPictureInPicture="false"

So, why do I think this means Android TV support is coming, especially since this flag specifically turns off a feature? Well, to put it simply, it's unlikely that the YouTube Music developers would bother to disable a feature for a platform if they haven't at least tried the app on there. It stands to reason that this means YouTube Music has at least been tested, and until support is actually ready, this particular feature will be disabled. This is obviously just speculation and guesswork, but it's not an unreasonable assumption.

Android TV is no longer a ghost town for apps, but YouTube remains one of the most important content providers for the platform. The YouTube Music app could go a long way in adding another compelling experience for users. It's a natural fit for the TV and may even help to drive Red subscriptions.

Download

The APK is signed by Google and upgrades your existing app. The cryptographic signature guarantees that the file is safe to install and was not tampered with in any way. Rather than wait for Google to push this download to your devices, which can take days, download and install it just like any other APK.

Comments

Not gonna lie, I always thought that was really weird too. However, I kinda chalked it up to the fact that YTM was very heavily based on the regular YouTube app codebase. Since YouTube didn't (and still doesn't) support it, neither did YTM. Slowly but surely, custom features are making their way into the app.

Considering this combination is only relevant to a fairly small crowd right now, I'm pretty willing to overlook that it wasn't a top priority yet. After all, Chromecast Audio is a fairly niche product, and there still aren't that many Cast-enabled speakers in the world yet. And YTM is an exclusive feature for YouTube Red subscribers. Put those two limiting factors together and the overlap is going to be fairly small. Though, it's also worth pointing out that YTM has over 10M downloads in the Play Store, so the numbers aren't insignificant.

Anthrox

They could of been waiting for the new v3 of the cast SDK

Matt

It's tough to convince people to buy something when your own products don't support it though.

person

To call YTM unfinished would be an understatement. This app feels like an alpha.

Haider Rehman Butt

Release in Pakistan plz Google. :(

Comediante

Spotify is way ahead of Google in it's own hardware.

create812

Play Music All Access is a term I have heard in a long time.

AbbyZFresh

I've been seeing this app on the top 5 downloads on the Play Store for a couple weeks now. Are people actually using the app like that?

create812

I got SO frustrated the few times I did use YTM because it was missing Chromcast Audio feature. I resorted to using the ancient BLUETOOTH speaker I had laying around.

Am I crazy for wanting to listen/watch music on my tablet? Or even control my Chromecast using my tablet?

vn33

Am a subscriber of Google Music, and still waiting for YouTube Red to come to Canada ... *sigh*

Suicide_Note

I would use YTM more often if it didn't murder my battery so quickly.

Example: I played through two songs this morning, screen off and each about 6 or 7 minutes long, and lost 12% off my battery's charge. By comparison, i stream from Play Music on high quality for about an hour each day before work, and only use about 4 or 5%.

Rand Phillips

And this app still doesn't show both the thumbs up and thumbs down buttons while in landscape mode. (I even submitted a request to Google, asking if they'd implement this feature). They have them both in portrait mode, but not landscape. That's just dumb, Google. Sigh!

person

Recommendations are still a nightmare. No matter how many thousands of songs you've listened to/liked over the years if you stop listening for a couple days it'll throw all that data out and fill your recommendations with random trending music.

No, not at all. There are plenty of apps and websites can play music on Chromecast. The only thing that's exclusive to YouTube Red is the YouTube Music app itself.

JG

There is also a subtle change that gives some hope that we may finally see YouTube Music make the jump to Android TV in the near future.

Any chance this may be a sign there might be a successor for the Nexus Player in the works? Or at least not have it totally abandoned? [*yes, I am aware Android TV still exists even though Google doesn't currently have an active hardware unit for the platform and that said update could simply be for the platform and not an indication of new hardware]

It would be nice to have a new Player, especially depending on how the FCC's Free The Box campaign goes. It could be nice to be able to fully replace the cable box, including its DVR functionality*, with a Pixel/Nexus Player.

*I know DVR feature has been an issue with the cable companies, fearing piracy. I don't see why Comcast/Spectrum/etc couldn't use a similar method to what Google Play Movies uses to ensure the movies & shows I pin to my device are not pirated. I would assume they already use a similar method in the cable boxes they give out now, considering I can clearly see my DVR uses a regular 500GB WD Green hard drive. Nothing but some encryption (and an annoying "Warranty void if damaged" sticker) is stopping me from disconnecting the drive and connecting it to my PC...

I wouldn't count this as a sign of new hardware, at least not in any direct sense. None of this evidence directly implicates that result.

Google could obviously go forever without releasing another first party Android TV unit and the ecosystem would probably live or die no differently. However, I suspect there will be another one eventually, if for no other reason than to give developers something to work with. I have no inside knowledge or leaks suggesting it, but it makes logical sense.

[M]

Why do they need to add special support for audio devices? Why can't they just cast as usual, just don't show the picture?

dvdchas

Thats what I think as well. Just let me stream the audio of any YouTube video to chromecast audio. I have all sorts of YouTube video podcasts and all I want is the audio.
I can't see how this is any different from having a normal chromecast device plugged into my home cinema amp but the tv is switched off. (apart from the inconvenience of needing a device that extracts the audio from hdmi).